Nothing that you do or don't do will 'get you into heaven'. There's no reserving tickets for that. I personally can't wrap my mind around the whole 'being saved' malarkey. Salvation is a lifelong journey with no guarantees. Then again, I come from an older Christian tradition, where the objective is theosis (look it up) and the way there is being the best kind of person you can be, picking yourself up every time you falter, and trusting God to grant you eternity, because, as an inherently finite entity, you can't deserve it.

Take it or leave it, as codes go, but I've never had self-respect issues in that space.

I'd never heard of theosis before, and now I only know what wikipedia tells me. I'm guessing that you're catholic? I don't know much about that, it's not common in my area. My information sources for my opinions are the Bible and what I've learned in the Protestant churches I went to, so I'm limited to that. But, just from what I'm reading now(and I could be wrong, I don't mind correction if I am) theosis mostly affects salvation, like you said. That wouldn't affect male/female roles in the current life, and Catholicism follows the bible the same way protestants do, right?

Okay. I went over it a little just now(I'll go back over it better when I'm more awake) and it is quite a bit different from what I'm used to hearing. Where I'm from the fire and brimstone kind of scare tactics Protestant Christianity is common. If I understand it right, Orthodox Christianity would change some of my views, but I don't think it would change all of them. Either way, I'm glad I learned something.

I believe in God, life is simply too miraculous in my eyes. That said I don't believe too much in organized religions. Two reasons: God gave us free will, and why would he demand the slavish devotions some faiths demand? Second,.well I'll just say 2 years of watching Anglican vs Catholic hate at once remove (I was in the republic watching Northern Ireland on TV. Scarey stuff for a kid from the sleepy south). And in folks like Ian Paisley of the 80s and the Orange day marches in Londonderry and you start to really wonder.

Okay... If rules were so important, then Jesus lied to that one thief getting crucified with him? A lot of people forget there were 2 others getting strung up with him. One thought he was just as crazy as everyone else. The other begged him for forgiveness. Jesus forgave him and told him he would be allowed into Heaven.

Now, I don't agree with this logic. I mean, it makes no sense for you to live life doing whatever the hell you want, then have regrets on your death bed. Honestly, the Bible is a book. It was written by man, and translated several times.

Also, the discovery of the Dead Sea scrolls proves there were writings that weren't put into the Bible, but rather tossed into a cave. The question becomes why? If the Bible is the word of God, why did they leave some things out? Wouldn't you want God's entire message in there? And who knows what other writings there were that disintegrated or were burned or something.

My point is that the dogma is a human thing. Since none of us were alive some 2 thousand years ago, we don't know what Jesus was really like, and what he really preached. We're going off the word of people who wrote stuff down long after Jesus was gone, and it looks like when the official version of the Bible was put together they cherry-picked too. So it's okay for the Council of Nicea to cherry-pick, but the rest of us can't?

I think questioning is a sign of intelligence. I'm not the type of person that can be told something and just accept it. I do not consider myself a Christian.

Also, the discovery of the Dead Sea scrolls proves there were writings that weren't put into the Bible, but rather tossed into a cave. The question becomes why? If the Bible is the word of God, why did they leave some things out? Wouldn't you want God's entire message in there? And who knows what other writings there were that disintegrated or were burned or something.

Council of Nicaea. That's why some gospels aren't in the bible. It was voted on as to which ones got IN the bible. The Gospel of Judas anyone? Gospel of Mary Magdalene? Yeah, they didn't make the cut. Hence why I don't hold the bible as the infallible word of god.

Mm, not really. Monotheistic religions believe that one god is perfect and knows everything. If he's perfect and knows everything you can't question him or his rules. There's not a lot of room for flexibility.

But, what are his rules? The bible, like the U.S. Constitution, is rife with ambiguity, and the subject of layer upon layer of conflicting constructions. Much of what we understand today to be religious dictates cannot be found in the bible at all. Judaism is a particularly illustrative case, as many of its rules (and, for the orthodox, there are a grotesquely large number of them) do not appear in the Old Testament at all, but instead derive from the Talmud's assembled rabbinical commentary on the Torah (the OT's first five books).

If the content of the Bible had been revealed by a perfect god, as the faithful contend, rather than penned by imperfect man, one would think he would have gone to greater pains to make it more lucid to our puny minds. If the product of man, why not pick and choose what we like in it? Or, ignore it altogether.

I really fail to see the meaning in this. It seems like a distinction without a difference. I really don't know what else to call it, or how to make it any clearer. What he's describing is religion, just by a different name. Calling it spirituality or philosophy or any other name does the argument no credit, because this proposed belief still has all the hallmarks of religion. A monotheistic religion, no less, with an omnipotent creator god who cares what we do. It's even more apparent in another one of that guy's videos, where he says that any marriage not based on Jesus ( whatever that even means ) is flawed.

Besides that, the greatest flaw I see in this is that if every religion is wrong and people distort and misinterpret, then why should this view be above such criticism? Since no one alive today ( at least to my knowing ) is Jesus, or knew him in person, and we all have our knowledge handed down from people, all of it is interpreted. It's impossible to have an unfiltered view of Jesus without any sort of intermediary.

So again, I fail to see how the message is anything but a substitution of words.

I think the discussion about the fallibility of the bible might belong in a different thread, maybe? It doesn't really lend any credence to one person saying that they understand Jesus as he really was, does it? It may give you the confidence to cherry pick from its contents for yourself, but it doesn't mean you have some special insight about Jesus, or that all the churches have it wrong.

Religion is a personal thing, of course, and if you want to pick and choose what applies to you, then no one has much right to question it. But if your beliefs are based on what amounts to a gut feeling/hunch/whatever, then just be honest about that. It's hypocritical to attack someone else's beliefs for being based on a shoddy source, when yours are based on different portions of the same source.

I suppose my arguments are more directed at people who say the Bible is straight from God and literal and perfect, which are the people I'm used to being around, not necessarily the ones on this board. I agree, religion is a personal thing and no one can really know what Jesus was like. My problem is when people say that Jesus really meant this or that with only their feelings on whether they personally believe this or that as backup, calling everyone else who follows the religion wrong and saying they don't understand what it's all about. Like Will said, when your opinions about Jesus's philosophies are only based on your personal feelings, admit that. Don't say that everyone else got Jesus wrong because they don't have the same hunches you do.

I grew up in church and even have a brother who is a pastor, now with that being said Yes i believe in Jesus and yes i believe in GOD. I even taught sunday school and this is what i learned there is a lot of hypocrisy in the church. And i think the reason for that is because church is ran like a business and not a place of worship. Which is a huge problem they want us all to finace there cause.

Religious hypocrisy has probably been with us as long as there have been religions. I just finished reading "Swerve" by Stephen Greenblatt, the story of the rediscovery in the early 15th century of the heretical poem/philosophical treatise, "On the Nature of Things," written n the 1st century BCE by the Roman, Lucretius, an Epicurean. The rediscoverer and initial circulator of the book, Poggio Braccolini, had been an apostolic secretary to the deposed Pope John XXIII (the name was taken again in the last century) and to later popes, a position within the curia of enormous influence and material opportunity. Poggio, a highly learned layman who suffered few illusions, referred to the papal court quite openly as "The Lie Factory." The moniker was apparently accepted equably by Poggio's colleagues, of both the lay and clerical varieties. God bless him.

I think the guy in the OP's video would probably be pretty comfortable if Gnosticism was around in any pervasive form anymore :)

The thing with Christianity, is as Iniquitous Opheliac pointed out, it was a label applied to Jesus and his Jewish followers, long after the fact. And even after the label applied, it was never a monolithic one. There were many different churches, preaching many different doctrines and gospels. The two main "factions" of Christianity, before the Catholic vs. Orthodox schism, were Alexandria and Rome.

The proto-Catholic church that would eventually win the day was a somewhat large and rather influential group. Equally so, was the Christian community at Alexandria, which was much more diverse, and included in the most common body of its beliefs were the so-called "Gnostic Gospels." Long story short, at the council of Nicea (again, nice work, Opehliac :) ) and after much anti-Gnostic propaganda, the Church of Rome essentially won the day. History may have been very different if some of the books that were excluded found themselves in the canon, and vice versa.